who we are and all that we're trying to be
The Reaper had always seen others with their companions: dragons, kitsunes, hellhounds, connections he’d never thought to forge or even attempt to understand. Here, they did the same, a seemingly symbolic ritual, a coming together union of intertwining minds and souls – Amalia with Jyoti, Kiada with Auni, Jigano with Isuma, Remi with Isla – and didn’t consider himself likely to be a part of it. Kiada approached, closer and closer, perhaps recognizing his apprehension as the unicorn stared him down, became a part of him, sequestering a piece of his warren, labyrinthine mind and everything that came with it. She could wander amidst the dread and the delusions, the desecration and disasters, the convictions and the carefully contorted malice, where he’d been alone, where he’d been content, where he’d been stuck in miles and miles of mire and muck. She might’ve been even now, staring along the fringes and edges, as if she’d been transported to some decadent consignment of hell, and was left unimpressed with her lodgings. “I think so?” He answered with an inquiry of his own, stare rooted to the unicorn’s features despite Kiada’s question; he wouldn’t know, a first time for everything, caught and snagged on something life-changing and altering. He swallowed down the consternation and found no bile, no poison, no vitriol coating his throat.
“Share in my emotions,” he blinked rapidly, then a dry response joined the bizarre onslaught. “I do not have much to portion out,” ending on a wry flicker of something he couldn’t name or fathom. Her hand raised to his shoulder, pressing into his charred clothing, as if she were aware this was difficult for him to experience, that he had no idea what he was doing – his commitments had always been in militia, in violence, in vehemence, in protection and preludes to persecution – not in proffering kindled lives, never alone again munitions. “Now what?” He whispered, completely baffled – the mare maneuvering her regal expression to Kiada, much of the same address; the unknown barreling down around him.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
